Nigeria gay ban trumps massacres of Christians

President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria (photo: World Economic Forum/swiss-image.ch)

PRAYER ALERT:On Jan. 7 Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan signed a bill banning gay marriage and gay organizations. It includes penalties of up to 14 years in prison. A world media avalanche has followed. More than 90% of mass media articles on this nation have focused on the Nigeria gay ban. They have highlighted the 38 gays arrested for violating the ban in the mostly Muslim north, and the 10 arrested in the mostly Christian south. The Nigeria gay ban has been condemned by the UN, US, UK and EU.

Yet there was scant coverage of the 43 massacred by a Boko Haram car bomb in a busy commercial center of Maiduguri, Nigeria on Jan. 14. Or the 12 massacred in two Nigerian Christian villages on Dec. 30, hours after top Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau proclaimed that his war is against Christians. Those 12 were added to the 600 Nigerian Christians already killed in the year 2013—mostly due to Boko Haram.

Boko Haram is a Muslim extremist group which was born in Maiduguri in 2002.

Boko Haram has long advocated the imposition of Shariah law in Nigeria. It became ultra-violent in 2009, killing 700 in Maiduguri alone in that year. It has gained such influence that the government has sustained an ongoing state of emergency in six northeastern states. The Jan. 14 massacre prompted President Jonathan to fire all his military commanders and appoint Air Marshal Alex Badeh to Nigeria’s top military post on Jan. 16.

But the world media has largely ignored Boko Haram and the hundreds of Christians they kill every year. They have broadcast instead a few dozen arrests under the new Nigeria gay ban. Do Christian lives matter so little next to agenda of gay advocates?

PRAY WITH US: Father God, You are all-seeing and all-knowing. You and Your angels are on a 24/7 World Watch over all the people of the earth. We thank You for appointing watchmen on the walls of the nations of the world. Help them continue to see far more than the world media sees. The world media is turning a blind eye to the suffering of millions of Your people. They are turning a blind eye to homosexuals too, calling what is evil good, and what is good evil. Free them from their fixation on aberrant sex to consider matters of life and death. Even more matters of eternal life and eternal death. For that is what Your people are suffering for.

The enemy is moving across Africa spreading bad news, targeting Christians and non-Islamic governments. Move in greater waves with the good news that the kingdom of God is at hand. Disarm Muslim attacks. Send them dreams and visions of Your kingdom coming instead. Give Your people miraculous deliverances from evil that the enemy cannot deny. Raise up leaders to disciple these nations. Raise up new constitutions, and new authorities with a love of the people and a fear of You. Keep Your watchmen on the alert to keep governments accountable to their promises. And guide Your people to overcome every evil with good, and every challenge with grace. In Jesus’ name, amen.